James Kirby

And I wanted to ask you something, Nerida, which I haven't actually dealt with on the show before, but it's something I think that would be worth knowing, folks.

If it's the case, and in the first part we were talking about how there's more renters in the market now, how people are renting for longer, how people are renting...

much older than they were.

And then on the other side, younger people finding it much harder to get into the market.

It seems to me that the days of the big headlines, which say mortgage changes, mortgage rate rises, it used to be front page news, and of course it still is.

But I wonder, does it affect as many people as it used to?

Because I'm thinking back on some of the recent reports

which signal, if you like, that base is actually shrinking.

Am I on the right track there?

Better cash rates.

Yeah, of course.

But what about the people with mortgages?

I was reading, as I say, the kind of

The ultimate article on all these issues is the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, AHURI.

They forecast home ownership in Australia will fall from the current level of about 67%, used to be much higher, used to be in the high 70s, to around 63%.

I mean, is it the case that pool of mortgage payers, as you say, one side of the story is they are so indebted that a mortgage...

rate rise hurts more, but there's less of them, isn't there, sort of carrying the load?

That idea of one third in each group, that has to change, obviously, with what they're saying, if the level of home ownership starts to drop.

In the fullness of time, there will be less mortgage payers.

So it's this sort of pain bubble, what they used to call the mortgage belt in our minds.